Page:Boy scouts in the White Mountains; the story of a long hike (IA boyscoutsinwhite00eato).pdf/249

 *haps eight or ten feet deep at the front now, and a good deal deeper at the back. It was something like three hundred feet wide, they reckoned, and extended out from the cliff from sixty to a hundred feet. The arch was about in the centre, and the brook was flowing out from beneath it.

"Look!" cried Art, "a few rods down-stream the alders are all in leaf, nearer they are just coming out, and here by the edge they are hardly budded!"

"That's right," said Lou. "I suppose as the ice melts back, spring comes to 'em."

Rob put his hand in the brook. "Gee, I don't blame 'em," he said; "it's free ice water, all right."

"Come on into the ice cave," Peanut exclaimed, starting forward.

Mr. Rogers grabbed him. "No, you don't!" he cried. "People used to do that, till one day some years ago it caved in, and killed a boy under it. You'll just look in."

Peanut poked at the edge of the roof with his staff. It looked like snow, but it was hard as ice. "Gee, that won't cave in!" said he.

"Just the same, we're taking no chances," said the Scout Master.

So the Scouts tried to content themselves with peeking into the cold, crystal cave, out of which came the tinkle of dripping water from the dangling icicles on the roof, and a breath of damp, chilling